Ed Diener - Böcker

In this volume, the authors explain the reasons why subjective indicators of well-being are needed. They describe how these indicators can offer useful input and provide examples of policy uses of well-being measures. They describe the validity of the subjective well-being measures as well as potential problems. The authors then delve into objections to the use of subjective well-being indicators for policy purposes and discuss why these objections are not warranted. Finally, they describe the measures that are currently in use and the types of measures that are most likely to be valuable in the policy domain. The volume will be of interest to researchers in psychology and economics.

This book draws together the latest work from scholars around the world using subjective well-being data to understand and compare well-being across countries and cultures. Starting from many different vantage points, the authors reached a consensus that many measures of subjective well-being, ranging from life evaluations through emotional states, based on memories and current evaluations, merit broader collection and analysis. Using data from the Gallup World Poll, the World Values Survey, and other internationally comparable surveys, the authors document wide divergences among countries in all measures of subjective well-being, The international differences are greater for life evaluations than for emotions. Despite the well-documented differences in the ways in which subjective evaluations change through time and across cultures, the bulk of the very large international differences in life evaluations are due to differences in life circumstances rather than differences in the way these differences are evaluated.

This volume is concerned with quality of life and focuses on subjective well-being (people's own evaluations of their lives in terms of happiness and satisfaction). The first section focuses on theories of subjective well-being, and on testing these theories. The second section concentrates on how work, unemployment and income influence subjective well-being. The third section concerns two important institutions that have an impact on people's well-being - the health care and political systems. Authors from diverse disciplines present their views and research concerning quality of life, and focus on subjective well-being. The chapters cover topics ranging from theories of happiness and data bearing on these theories, to the organization of the political system. Income, work, health care and leisure are considered as they influence well-being. The effects of temperament, people's values and goals and life events are also treated. There is an international dimension to the volume, with authors from several nations and data gathered from diverse societies.The findings of the volume are relevant to academic researchers as well as to those working in applied areas who want to improve quality of life.

Utilizing sophisticated methodology and three decades of research by the world's leading expert on happiness, Happiness challenges the present thinking of the causes and consequences of happiness and redefines our modern notions of happiness. shares the results of three decades of research on our notions of happinesscovers the most important advances in our understanding of happinessoffers readers unparalleled access to the world's leading experts on happinessprovides "real world" examples that will resonate with general readers as well as scholarsWinner of the 2008 PSP Prose Award for Excellence in Psychology, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers

The rst dimension is whether the theory places the locus of happiness in external conditions such as income and status, as many sociological theories do, or within the attitudes and temperament of the individual, as many psychological theories do.

The culture and well-being questions are of fundamental importance to understanding in the entire eld and to scienti c knowledge in the behavioral s- ences as a whole.

Ed Diener is the leading research scientist studying happiness and well-being. This is the third of three volumes that collect all his major works. It analyzes the measures of well-being that are currently in use including several new and useful ones.